


Loki's Logic

by duointherain



Category: Gundam Wing, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Endgame, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 12:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18894217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: When Steve's life is ending on the battlefield, Loki rescues him. They both confront a love that they had denied. It can be very hard to tell Loki no, even more so, if you really want to say yes.





	Loki's Logic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenneMichaels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Art - Loki's Logic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895765) by [RenneMichaels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/pseuds/RenneMichaels). 



Loki’s Logic  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Marvel. I have never actually done ‘Get Help’. I also don’t own Gundam Wing, but I sure have written enough of it... 

Warning: Very slight possibility for Endgame Spoilers, though it’s a Marvel movie, so it’s no surprise there’s combat.

Rating: PG 13

 

Dirt hit his tongue, rude, dry. His thoughts caught up seconds later, roughly equal to his breath. He lay where Thanos had thrown him. Resting on earth that had ever really been invested in his fight, win or lose. 

They were losing.  
Again.

A chill dusted over his scalp, across his shoulders, closed off his throat. 

He wasn’t a coward. He reminded himself of this. Blood crept a slow trickle across his arm, lingering, jumping forward, laughing at him and his weakness. Drawing breath just took too much effort. Death was late. That thought brought shame and its sharp teeth on his soul. Once weak, always weak. 

“Let’s do ‘Get Help’.” 

Familiar voice.  
Irritating.  
Even still, an edge of longing.  
Forbidden. Maybe just enough spark of joy to make living desirable. 

Steve opened an eye, just on the off chance that he wasn’t hearing things. 

Loki. 

Well. 

Crumbs. 

Those were such beautiful blue eyes. He wanted to brush the dirt out of his mouth, away from his face, to smile at Loki who was just lying there staring at him. Thrill spiked. Loki had escaped Thanos! Of course, he did. Steve’s smile felt freeing. This close to death, and not just death, but the death of all that had ever had meaning, there was just joy in seeing his uncontrollable trickster. Magic outside of all the rules was exactly what he needed. 

Dark midnight hair fluttered up off that cheek air rushed over them, displaced by some crashing doom somewhere behind Steve. He would have panicked, if there had been anything he could have done about any of it. 

“No, seriously,” Loki said, calm and collected, some ironically calm disaster in the heart of the storm. “We should do ‘Get Help’.” 

“Get help,” Steve forced his broken body to say. That gave him a much better map of his own injuries and his focus shifted. He was dying. It wasn’t just that they were losing. He didn’t actually know, one way or the other, but he was dying. Copper pooled at the side of his mouth and trickled away out the corner of his mouth, like soul evaporating never to be contained again. 

“Yeah,” Loki said, smiling, a cocky grin that always seemed just slighly portentous. “Get help!” 

Loki’s arm went around him, gripping his side and crunched ribs made like a consciousness bruise. If he’d been able to draw air, he would have screamed with all due enthusiasm. As he was, he hung against Loki’s lean hard body like a broken doll. 

“Get help,” Loki called loudly, mostly carrying Steve. “My lover is hurt!”

Steve’s mouth hung open, mostly because he was just too out of it to close it, but also because he really wanted to protest. They weren’t lovers! Loki had no way of knowing wishes Steve wouldn’t even admit to himself.

The battlefield lay under an eerie silence. Explosions hung in the air. Droplets of blood and spit rested in the air, mid-falling and Steve looked back at them as Loki nearly dragged him forward. The moment they weren’t touching him, they stopped moving forward in time. “Whaaa?”

“We’re getting help,” Loki said, making a sweeping ritualistic gesture with his free hand. A twilight blue portal came into being. 

Leaving the battle! They were leaving the battle! “No,” Steve groaned, but there was nothing in his body to resist as Loki swept him up into his arms and carried him through the portal. 

“Oh fucking hell,” a woman growled. Right up in Steve’s face, shining a light in one eye than the other, before giving Loki a look that could put a normal man into a midlife crisis no matter his age. “What the fuck do you expect me to do with this, Loki?” 

“Hi Martha,” Loki said with an entirely different kind of smile, more the kind of smile that a queen would give before it eats the enemy’s last pawn. Chin tilting a little, those blue eyes sparkled. “This Captain America.”

“Lovely.” Though she clearly meant more like pestilence. “Joel!”

Whoever Joel was, he was as beautiful as she was plain. Joel was a whole lot less gentle than Loki too, which Steve found himself pulling away from the world to contemplate that, as the pretty blond man shifted the bag of broken parts that was Steve’s body onto a medical gurney. The pain in his body was like a spider web of fracturing cracks and his soul was the tiny fly in pain’s web. 

Gentle fingers touched his face and he found himself staring into blue eyes, those beautiful spring sky blue eyes. In that moment, Steve found the pain and failure tolerable. If he could have just stay in that moment like a mortal pulled from time, he would have. 

“Steve,” Loki said, voice soft and sincere. “Everything will be okay. The very nature of who you are draws love from the universe and it has answered you. Trust me.” 

As he exhaled, tension released like the web holding him went slack. He did trust him. Good existed in all people. Pain completely released him. Warm comforting sleep cradled him. Everything was going to work out okay.

<><>

He woke in a comfortable bed, clean sheets cool against his bare legs. The scent of lavender and carnation filled the room. There was quiet. It was peaceful. 

Eyelids do their own things sometimes and his eyes fluttered open before he was willing, ruining his attempt at stealthily gaining information about wherever he was. He’d expected a hospital room. He’d expected something that looked like 1942, grey walls, starched sheets, prim nurses. What he got was a curved glass wall overlooking a pristine beach with waves crashing against rocks and a sunrise that would have been at home in Eden. 

Drawn to the unexpected beauty, he sat up and stared. 

A book closed behind him, paper rustling just slightly. “I thought you’d enjoy that.” 

“Oh,” Steve said, turning to face him, sheet’s pooling at his waist. 

Loki had dressed a little bit like 1942 and a lot like Mister Rogers. Even holding an elegant hardback book. The effect of a sweater and grey slacks did nothing to making Loki seem platonic. His dark hair was just a bit longer, pulled back and his smile was somewhere between unbridled joy and cunning trap setting. 

Excitement trembled through Steve’s belly, up the back of his neck. There are just things that are not to be done. Just like there was one god and he didn’t dress like Loki’s brother, there was one path of romance and it didn’t include blue-eyed gods of mischief. “Hello, Loki.”

“Hello, Steve Rogers,” Loki said with smile that was the first cousin of the shiver that just danced up Steve’s neck. “Would you care to walk on the beach?”

Steve’s mouth opened, snapped shut. “Where am I?”

“OH,” Loki stood, smirking, his slacks laying over curves just so, as he kind of very subtly posed, watching where Steve’s eyes went. “We’re on Camelot. It’s a space station. The people who live here used to be human. You’ll like them!” 

“Loki, what are you doing?” 

Loki’s elegant fingers touched his chest, just above his heart as his chin lifted. “Saving the world, of course.” 

There is a comfort in strength. Finding his body back in working order gave him a strength that he welcomed. He swung his legs over and kept the sheet tight around his waist. “Thanos?”

“My god, you never give up do you? He beat your pretty ass into mirepoix and you just want to get up and run back.” 

“He’s going to kill everyone,” Steve insisted as he cautiously stood up. “How long have I been here?” 

“Time is irrelevant in this moment. We’re five hundred years in the future of the moment where I rescued you. I did rescue you, you know,” Loki said, folding his arms across his chest. 

“Earth is fine? Did we bring everyone back?”

Loki fluttered a hand, waving the question away. “Why don’t you get dressed? Or perhaps I could flirt with you some more?”

Steve sucked breath through a shocked open mouth, body turning sideways, as he pulled the sheet a little higher. “I’m not... like that!” 

“Really?” Loki smirked. He rested an elbow on his other wrist, posed hand resting against his cheek. “You know I’m a better liar than you are, right?”

“I’m not lying!” 

With a swish of his hand, Loki moved towards the door. “Put some pants on, Rogers. Maybe you can see a little clearer without your dick hanging out.” 

“Rude!” 

Just before he opened the door, Loki looked over his shoulder with such a sweet unguarded smile. “I’m not the one lying.” 

Steve opened his mouth, shut it, opened it, all the words he might have said just dying there on his tongue, just so much dust. Anger rose up to push out embarrassment and he grabbed up the pants folded on the table at the end of the bed. The tee-shirt molded to his body. 

The room outside the door was not what any reasonable person would have expected. Outside the window in the first room there had been a huge beach. Now there was a park that stretched as far as he could see. Trees, sky, picnic benches, the odd raccoon, and it looked like Earth, but it smelled nothing like New York. Steve turned to find just a single door behind him. No walls, just that one door, and he grabbed the knob, opened it, stepped back into the room and shut that door again. 

He’d died. Loki died. Everyone died. Jesus was going to walk up any moment and welcome him home. Yup. 

The knock on the door startled him and he jumped away from where he’d been leaning against the door. Eyes wide, breath held, he watched the door open. 

It wasn’t Jesus. It was just a kid, maybe ten or so, with long brown hair and violet eyes and huge grin. “Heya! Are you a real superhero?”

Barefoot, having functionally run away from the most important battle of his life, Steve’s lip twitched. “Uh.” 

The kid slipped all the way in, shut the door, half ran, half jumped his way to Steve, who was backing up at the same time. “So I hear you fought a real big monster?”

“Um, yes, son. I have fought some monsters. Where are your parents?”

The kid’s face was expressive like Loki was elegant. He sighed, those big violet eyes only barely betraying that he was play acting the emotion, “I’m an orphan, sir!” 

This was much more familiar ground. Steve squared his shoulders and smiled kindly, reaching out to lay a hand on the lad’s slender shoulder. “That’s all right son. We’re all Americans. We’re all your family.” 

Those violet eyes narrowed. Steve had never seen a boy look like a raccoon about to pounce. “Yeah? I’m like seven hundred years old. You’re the little boy.” 

Swallowing, Steve rubbed his temple. “Well then, sir, maybe you’ll give me some advice. I seem to be lost. I was in a very important battle, but now I’m here. Am I dead?”

“I’ve been dead a bunch of times,” Duo said, nodding sagely. “We’re definitely not dead. We don’t have superheroes like you in our universe.”

“I’m not really a superhero,” Steve said, grimacing. “I’m just a man.” 

“That’s not what Loki said.” 

“Uh, well, Loki lies,” Steve admitted. “In my world, I’m an Avenger. I try to protect people and the world.”

“Uh,” Duo said, mimicking just a little. “Well, when I was younger I was a Preventer. I wasn’t real good at it and it was bad for my mental health.”

“Preventer sounds nice. How did Loki get here?”

“Don’t know,” Duo said. “I like you. Wanna come play with me and ‘Ro?”

700 years old or not, this was a child. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I have to go back to the battle. People are depending on me.”

“I so see why Loki is in love with you! If you go before he says you’re ready, you’ll just end up dying and failing. If he gets all depressy and morose again, I might have to kick yer ass myself. He’s a good guy.” 

Headache, yup, that’s what this was. “Son, I’ve met people a lot bigger than you who couldn’t kick my ass. Loki is a criminal, so you should be aware that he is probably working on some greater scheme.” That last statement left him with sad lingering on his tongue, weighing down his soul. Sometimes he didn’t like truth. 

The boy moved like a blur. His punch hit Steve in the small of the back, but the impact was light, just a message, not an actual attack. Just as fast as he had moved behind Steve, he jumped onto the bed, bounced a couple times, then smiled like some innocent child. “Looks are deceiving and people change. You don’t LOOK like an asshole. People change, you know.” 

“Yeah? Loki’s a lot older than you are, little boy, and probably a lot smarter.” 

“Oh god, you’re so much like Relena. She was all about wanting to get her ass killed too.”

“Son, you should watch your language,” Steve scowled. “Where is Loki now?”

Duo jumped up, jumped up and down on the bed, then stuck his tongue out as far as he could while shaking his head and growling. “That’s for me to know and you to not!” Moving like a blur, he was off the bed and out the door, with Steve chasing him, very unsuccessfully. 

“Crumbs,” Steve cursed with enough passion that it could have been a much more profane curse. The world outside the door wasn’t some well-trimmed version of the Summerland now though. It looked like Asgard, at least like Steve thought Asgard ought to look. 

When screaming for Loki produced no results, Steve started the long walk along the Bifröst. It didn’t take long before he started jogging. By the time he actually reached buildings, he was in a good mood. Exercise will do that for you. He’d also had a moment to think about his so easy dismissal of homosexuality. That had been homophobia on his part and he accepted that now. 

In his time, homosexuality had been very forbidden, but in the future he’d been living in, it was fine. It was much easier for it to be fine for other people than for himself. A little winded after what had turned into a hard run, he leaned over, hands on his knees. He’d spent a great deal of time telling himself that he was ‘in love’ with a woman that in this moment, he couldn’t really remember her face, or her voice. She was an unreachable icon of love he could never lose, never be hurt by. 

A sin you can’t commit is a sin you don’t got to repent from. 

Loki was a whole new kind of sin though and Steve felt that shiver of attraction dance over him again. What would it feel like to kiss Loki? Strong lips, naked lips, steeped in lies and clever, and Steve’s thoughts settled on imagining what that would be like. 

“You could just ask, you know,” Loki said. He was dressed in green now, tight black pants and a longer green cardigan, and a smile that recognized the sin in Steve. 

“Ask what?” Steve snapped, spinning on his heel and walking away from the very man he’d been running to find. “What kind of game are you playing?”

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Loki protested, appearing a few feet in front of where Steve was striding off to. “Do you want to kiss me or not?”

“Not,” Steve said, pivoting to walk in the other direction. “Even if I were homosexual, which I’m not! I wouldn’t want to kiss you!” 

Loki leaned against the stone wall, again in front of Steve, examining a fingernail. “Lying makes you unworthy, you know?”

With a grunt, Steve put both hands against the wall, one to either side of Loki’s pretty head. “Do YOU want me to kiss you?”

“Yes,” Loki said, shivering slightly, a little color brightening his cheeks. “Very much so.”

“Well,” Steve said, nerve failing as if he were no more than a skinny boy from the Brooklyn. “I. I don’t have time.” 

“Really?” Loki tilted his head. “I find this side of you very attractive. You’re a very bad liar. It’s very sexy. So just lean a little forward and touch your lips to mine. It’s really quite easy. I’m sure you’ve kissed someone before. You have, haven’t....”

Frustration, need, whatever excuses he’d have later, Steve touched his lips to Loki’s. Passion flared, denied and suppressed, and unwelcome, sexual hunger came home like a tsunami reclaiming land. 

Those elegant fingers caressed his hair, sweaty as it was, sliding over his scalp in presumed innocence that Steve found he wanted more than anything he’d ever wanted. Instinct took his tongue into Loki’s mouth and he found he tasted like a man, a person, not a god, not distant, not unreal, but real and in that moment, Steve needed real and present more than he could measure. 

Moving by magic tingled, whispered forbidden, and it only freed Steve even more from outdated rules. The bed bumped against the back of his legs and he felt Loki lean against him, trying to push him over. Steve held his ground, an arm going around the more slender magic user. He lifted him off his feet, holding him tenderly, with both arms around him. “I don’t know how to do this, Loki.” 

Loki gently bit his ear, licked, kissed, then the back of his neck, right behind his ear, making Steve groan and shiver. “Lay down.” 

“Just like that,” Steve asked, brows furrowing. “Do you really love me?”

“I crossed universes and centuries to save you. Does that count?”

“You’re a lot smarter than me. I don’t know what your motives are.” 

Loki wrapped his legs around Steve’s waist, hands caressing him, rubbing his temples, touching his lips. “My intention is to save your Earth because you can’t live without it and I can’t live with a universe without you in it.” 

Trembling under Mischief’s expert touches, Steve whispered, “Why?”

 

“Love is hard to explain, Steve.” Kissing behind his other ear, Loki finally managed to tip them over into the very large, very fancy bed. “I love you so that fire seems cold next to you!”

“Wait, wait!” Steve said, shifting out from under Loki. “This is so fast! What are we doing?”

Loki stretched out on his side on the bed, head resting on his hand. “I was pretty sure we were about to have sex.”

“People should be married before they have sex!” Steve scrubbed at his face. “I have to get back to the battle! I don’t belong here!” 

“Steve,” Loki said, a hand cautiously reaching out to rest on his thigh. “As a wizard, I can tell you that wherever you are is where you belong.”

“But people are dying! The fate of the universe is...” Steve paused, face tightening, chest tightening. “He killed half of all life! Bucky turned to DUST!”

“Whatever happens in that battle,” Loki said scooting closer, “You will be there for it. You’ll go back, but refreshed and at your best.” 

“Are you going make me forget that my failure cost half of all life in the universe?”

“Anything you want, my dear!” 

Steve drew a breath to say something. The emotion was there. It was strong emotion, but he couldn't remember what he’d been about to say. He scowled. “What did you just do?”

“I gave you what you asked for, Steve, my dear. How would you like to be just a normal, regular man and we’ll get drunk and maybe, if you like, fuck like bunnies, then you can go back to your regular life, if you want, whenever you want?”

Now he did remember kissing him. He did remember that Loki had beautiful eyes and a voice that worked magic, literally, and a very nice ass, and just exactly who was going to judge him? “I can’t get drunk. I’ve never been drunk.” 

Loki sat up, point both fingers at Steve as he said, “That is a shame! A terrible shame that we will rectify in this very moment.” 

“Is Asgardian beer that strong?”

“It is, actually,” Loki said scooting closer and slowly, as if gaining ground on skittish prey, leaned close enough to kiss Steve’s cheek lightly, “But you are more intoxicating by far.” 

Heart fluttering, Steve rolled into the kiss, a strong arm pulling Loki closer. “I have never thought intoxication was a good thing.” 

“That’s because you haven’t had it before. I bet there are some things you haven’t had that I’d really like to give you?”

Steve let himself run his fingers through Loki’s hair. Silky and warm, not like dust at all, though the thought of dust was out of place and disturbing, confusing, and buried his hand in that dark hair, cradling the back of Loki’s head. Bone is so fragile, thought and self even more so. Love is mysterious and reckless and intoxicating. It swoops in without explanation and laughs at the reasoning that justifies it later. “You’re like some poem I read and can’t remember, but I know it said everything I felt, and holding you makes me feel like I can remember it again.”

“Don’t stop holding me.” Loki’s voice broke, just tiny cracks in a magic welded facade. “I feel fear too sometimes, you know. I make mistakes sometimes too.” 

Steve rolled back onto his back and pulled Loki so his head rested on his chest. Rubbing his back, gently combing his hair, Steve accepted that he did care for, that he did love this man, even with his sexual attraction to him. “That’s part of being alive, Loki. I’m very glad you’re alive.”

“Are you,” Loki asked softly, a hand grabbing a bunch of the gray tee-shirt Steve wore. “What about New York?”

“We both think that was one of those mistakes, right?” Steve curled up impulsively and kissed the top of Loki’s head. “And not just because you lost?”

With a heavy sigh, “Yes.” 

Steve caressed his face, then pushed hair back. “And not just because Hulk used you like a cat toy?”

Loki gasped and pushed up on to elbows, giving Steve an outraged look. “You can be such an asshole!”

Smirking, grinning, Steve winked. “That probably has something to do with why you like me.”

Loki rolled his eyes, then settled back down, snuggling against Steve’s chest. “Probably.”

They laid there for a while, breathing together, touching, not speaking. “Marriage is overrated,” Loki said. 

“No,” Steve said firmly. “Marriage is a commitment between two people, sanctifying carnal relations and connecting them to god.” 

Loki slipped fingers under the hem of Steve’s tee-shirt. A finger dipped into his belly button, circling slowly, some kind of foretelling, on the wizard’s part. “Well... we could just forgo the middle man and go right to connecting.” He paused, lifted his head, those blue eyes full of all the right kind of mischief, voice deep and siren invitingly, “carnally.” 

Steve laughed. “You a god, but you ain’t God.” He intentionally batted his eyes. “Are you saying you love me, but you don’t want to marry me? You only love me for the weekend? Maybe you need my, uh, essence for some arcane workings or something?”

“No!” Loki nearly jumped up, but only made it as far as sitting, now with a leg hooked around Steve’s, holding onto him for fear that one of them might just disappear. “Are you saying that you actually want to marry me? That you want to get married before we have sex? Really? I’m quite skilled, I think you’ll find and you’ll very much enjoy yourself!” Loki bounced his eyebrows suggestively. Steve blushed nuclear. 

Steve curled up, bracing on his elbows. “Temporary pleasure is not the point. Sex is for married people.” 

“You’ve ... never,” Loki said, shoulders hunching a little, eyes narrowing, “Not even with Barnes?”

“Goodness no!” Steve gave Loki the eye! “Bucky’s not like that.”

“Oh, yeah, he is!” Loki triumph grinned.

“You didn’t!” Steve sat up straight, palms slapping the bed. “Did you fuck Bucky Barnes!?”

“No,” Loki said truthfully. One should mind how one asks questions. “And language!”

“Crumbs, crumbs! Yes, yes, I’m so sorry.” Steve said, finding himself in storm of jealousy. “Have you had, um, have you known Thor is such ways?”

“Why,” Loki asked, moving to the edge of the bed, a hand over his heart, even though his words carried much less veracity, “would you ask such a thing of me and my dear, dear brother?” Those blue eyes could be the most innocent soul portals in all the worlds, when purpose was served. 

“Oh I’m so sorry,” Steve said, nodding, “I just find myself overcome with jealousy. Very distasteful of me! Please forgive me!” 

Loki reached out and caught both of Steve’s hands, drew them to his lips to kiss his palms. “What kind of wedding do you want?” Playful, adoring, he looked up at this man he’d secretly adored, “Only one of us can wear white.” 

“That’s not true! It’s a silly tradition. We can wear anything we want.” Steve pulled a hand free and a caressed Loki’s cheek, studying him intensely. “Will your family approve you marrying a mortal?”

“Will the Avengers approve you marrying a criminal?”

“Thor will be excited. There will be too much beer. He’s been having issues, so maybe this will help him. Issues. Oh,” Steve squinted, bit his upper lip, then rubbed his temple. “I was doing something important. It was important. It was about... dust.” 

“Walk with me,” Loki said, rising and hooking Steve’s arm around his. 

Without warning, they were on the beach, the gentle roar of the waves breaking and dragging over the sand. Steve’s bare feet pressed into the cool sand. “I had given up the idea of getting married. There was this woman.” 

“Peggy.” Loki nodded, then reached down to pick up a bit of broken shell with rainbowy mother of pearl. “Time is flexible, you know.” 

“It isn’t,” Steve said, bitterly. “She had a whole life and it wasn’t with me. I feel this sense of dread, of impending doom. I don’t understand. Are you, trying to get rid of me?”

“No, not even a little,” Loki said firmly, pressing the fragment of shell into Steve’s hand. “I know that patience isn’t really my most noticeable trait, but I can be very, very patient.”

They stood there together, fingers slowly entwining like it wasn’t anything they were actually doing. 

“Don’t worry about the Avengers,” Steve said softly. “I’ll explain it to them. Bucky... I want Bucky to be my best man.” 

Loki gave a heavy sigh. 

They stood there a bit longer. 

“You know, Thor is not the only one with a magic weapon.” 

“I did not know that,” Steve said, slipping his hand all the way around Loki’s “Tell me?”

“It’s an ancient sword,” Loki said, focused on the lightning he had dancing between the fingers of his free hand. He glanced over at Steve, smiled slightly. “Barbaric, really. Bathed in the blood of dragons and positively graffitied with truth magic.”

“Truth magic?” Steve smirked, playfully and affectionate. “You’re the god of mischief and your magic ‘hammer’ is a sword of truth?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to show it to me?”

“Yes.” 

The pause just hung there for a moment. 

Steve tucked the bit of shell into his pocket. “That’s very cool, actually. I feel a little less than worthy for you. I’m just a man.”

“Nonsense,” Loki snapped, stepping away, just a bit, so that the incoming tide brushed at one of his boots. “Every life is a unique flower, bearing fruit according to the pattern the soul builds into itself. From the moment you were born, Steve, you were always on a path to be more than any trinket ever could be.” 

“Magic swords ain’t trinkets.” 

“Useful sometimes, but they are only trinkets. You are infinitely more valuable and more beautiful. I don’t want to pull you from your path, Steve, I just want you to build me into it, so that no matter where you wander, you will come home to me.”

“That sounds like marriage to me. What are you trying to tell me? Why don’t you want to tell me?”

Loki squatted down and extinguished the lighting dancing on his fingers in the foamy surf. “I’m also impatient. Sometimes I want things before their time. No matter what I’m doing, I almost always mean well. You know I’m not written in the book of Hel, right?”

“I expect salvation is open to you too, Loki. Jesus loves everyone.” 

“That’s nice,” Loki said, looking back at Steve with a bit of edge to his words. The sunset painted a halo over dark silky hair and he pulled his hand up from the surf, dripping with salt water and a twilight purple roaring lightening. “Martha couldn’t save you, so I went to Hel. I scratched your name out of the Book of Hel too.” His grin expanded to a wreckless victory. 

“Thanks?”

Loki stood, but as he did so, he pulled up from the sand a molton white gold blade, the hilt wrapped in soaked green leather. Lightning danced down the blade, up over Loki’s elegant hand, up his arm, to free his hair. 

Steve held his ground, though he could feel the buzz of the lightning dancing over his bare feet on the sand. “Does it have a name?”

“Yeah,” Loki said, flipping the blade over in his hand, as if he just couldn’t hold it for any longer. “Gram. It’s ironic, because this is no one's grandma. Now you remember that I love. I loved you enough to go to Hel and scratch out your name. You remember that you are brave and strong and know your own worth. You are worthy, more so than any other sentience I’ve ever found. Now you remember how to find your way back to me, Steve Rogers and I will be right here waiting for you!”

“What? Where am I going?”

“To do what you must, what only you can do. You must save the world, my love! You were dying. I couldn’t stand it. I pulled you here. Now I must send you back. I have made you immortal. ”

“You can’t do that!” 

“I’ve already done it.”

“Loki! You can’t do that!” Steve couldn’t catch his breath. Memories tore at the spell holding them back. Holding his head with both hands, he remembered....

“Steven, what part of I’ve already done it are you having difficulty understanding? I love you. I’ll be better for you. You stay alive for me.” 

Gram swung, touching the crown of Steve’s head very lightly and the universe exploded in his head. He spit the dirt out of his mouth, found his footing as he struggled back to his feet. He tightened the leather belt on his arm. He was fighting Thanos! He wasn’t dead! He wasn’t dying. Not yet. He was going to stay alive!

There was a fragment of a shell his is pocket, waiting for him to find his way home.

 

 

 

Citations  
Runic Love Quotes. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.vikingrune.com/2008/12/runic-love-quotes/


End file.
